HELP do you know any good poems...?

[blondeatheart]

I need a poem that uses a lot of metaphors, or is in fact an extended metaphor
not too long please, do you know any good poems?
i need to chosoe one for school and write a page about it, focusing on metaphors
thanks

[Virgil]

Blonde - Look through Shakespeare's sonnets. Try Sonnet 60 if you want me to pick one for you.

SONNET 60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

[Shakira]

Hey blonde check out this site for all the extended metaphor poems you need
http://www.vsg.edu.au/samples/poetry/npsample.htm

[Shakira]

"The Hound" by Robert Francis:

Life the hound
Equivocal
Comes at a bound
Either to rend me
Or to befriend me.
I cannot tell
The hound's intent
Till he has sprung
At my bare hand
With teeth or tongue.
Meanwhile I stand
And wait the event.

The poem begins by equating "life" and "the hound" and creating a clear image of the dog running towards the speaker (thereby giving tangible substance to the otherwise abstract "life"). The speaker cannot determine the dog's intention--whether it will attack or warmly greet--because its appearance is the same in either case. Only once things have progressed past the point where the speaker can effectively react does he learn which was the dog's intention, so that all he can do is to wait in uncertainty to learn which it is to be. By grounding the entire poem in a single specific, concrete, commonplace occurence, Francis is able to generalize about "life" without resorting to vague abstractions.

[Shakira]

A. R. Ammons uses a single extended metaphor in "Coming To" to summarize the life of that poem's speaker:

Like a steel drum
cast at sea
my days,
banged and dented
by a found shore of
ineradicable realities,
sandsunk, finally, gaping,
rustsunk in
compass grass.

Although the speaker directly tells us none of the literal details of his life, we know from the comparison to the steel drum that his life has been a difficult one of aimless, directionless drifting that is about to reach its end just as the drum has at last randomly washed up on a shore and is beached, rusting away uselessly as it is being buried by the beach sands, ironically surrounded by "compass grass" which suggests that only now in approaching death is its direction at last clear.

With an extended metaphor, the poet is often able to explore a number of connections between the metaphor and that which it represents, broadening and deepening the significance.

[blondeatheart]

thanx

btw is ther a list of shakespeare's sonnets online somewher?

[Logos]

Sonnets etc..

http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/

[mono]

I know of several, but this one two conjoined poems by Robert Browning come to my mind (then again, if you notice the metaphors, you would understand why ):

Meeting At Night

I.
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

II.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Parting At Morning

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.

[blondeatheart]

thanx every1!

[MikeK]

It's probably too late to help with your assignment, and you received many other good replies, but I'll add this recommendation anyway. One of my favorite poems, which is a great example of an extended metaphor as well, is:


The Silken Tent

by Robert Frost

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when a sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightlest bondage made aware.

[holdencaulfield]

try this:

Langston Hughes’ “Harlem: A Dream Deferred”


What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun
Or fester like a sore—

And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?


Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

[blondeatheart]

thank you
i have yet another assignment now (sigh) i have to choose any three poems and write about them. any suggestions? something really meaningful and descriptive would be good.